


Batman and The Joker

by Fudgyokra



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Harley Quinn (2017)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Humor, Joker likes to tickle people ok, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Mostly Gen, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Parody, Retelling, Sort Of, Tickle Fights, Universe Alteration, Villains to Heroes, yeah that's a thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:44:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12840453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: “It’s time we started looking for someone who might know Harley Quinn’s whereabouts. Any known associate,” he said meaningfully, and the words wiped Barbara’s smile right off her face. “I’m saying we need to find The Joker.” ((DISCONTINUED))





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuperSentai199](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperSentai199/gifts).



> As requested, here’s an altered retelling of Batman and Harley Quinn.
> 
> Batman and The Joker must grudgingly team up to stop Poison Ivy’s peculiar new plot. Featuring Nightwing, Batgirl, and Red Robin! This fic isn’t romance-centered, but there are references to DickBabs and very vague ones to a couple of other pairings included therein. Feel free to ignore them if they’re not your cup(s) of tea.
> 
> I gotta admit, this request was a toughie to get through! I spent a lot of time avoiding it like it was gonna bite, all because I’m not well-versed in cinematic retellings. To me, translating something from the screen into proper novella format is a huge challenge. I’m not sure I did a good job, but I guess that’s for you guys to decide! I tried to make it at least marginally more enjoyable than the actual movie, lol. Idk what y’all thought of it, but I didn’t like it, to say the least. Had fun writing this, though. :)
> 
> (Not) sorry to #draghim, but since I don’t want to pump out content as reprehensible as Bruce Timm’s, feel free to be harsh in your critiquing of this, lmao.
> 
> And if you read all my blathering, an extra-special thanks to you!

For a moment, just a single blessed moment, Gotham City was silent. Bruce knew it never lasted, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate it for once, even though he was appreciating from the shingled rooftop of a stranger’s house. Whoever they were, they had an excellent view of the eastern half of downtown, which is exactly where he needed to be.

When a cool whoosh of air rose from behind him, he held out an expectant hand.

“No ‘how was your day?’” Barbara teased. Bruce watched her smooth her hair back with one gloved hand and reach into her utility belt with the other. “I only found this,” she explained as she deposited a crumpled paper into his palm. “It’s just a note, doesn’t really say much. Nothing important, at least.”

Bruce turned the note over a couple of times to examine it, but Barbara was right. The note was only a vague acknowledgement of a previous letter, written in curly script and signed with a jet-black kiss mark at the bottom. “From Harley,” he said, unnecessarily. It was more to raise a question than an answer.

“Right,” Barbara agreed, “but who was it for?”

“And what was it about?” Bruce added.

They stood for a moment overlooking the city, until the golden minutes of silence finally gave way to the normal clamor of the night. Somewhere in the distance, police sirens wailed. Somewhere closer, the purr of a motorcycle engine was fast-approaching.

While Bruce continued to analyze the paper in his hand, Barbara peered over the edge of the rooftop and watched a shiny black Ducati replica come to a full stop on the street just below. “You know,” she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth for emphasis, “you really ought to wear a helmet!”

From where he sat, perched atop the motorcycle, Dick flashed her a hundred-kilowatt smile. “Come on down!” he hollered back. “We’ve got work to do!”

Barbara tossed a meaningful look over her shoulder at Bruce. “You heard him, boss. Wanna go see what that racket’s all about?”

“You two go ahead.”

She clicked her tongue. With a final goodbye in the form of the words, “Suit yourself,” she leapt from the roof and glided to the street below.

//

Dick drove fast, but not fast enough. The perpetrators were already long gone by the time they got to S.T.A.R. Labs, although it appeared nothing was out of the ordinary, barring a few folders that had been scattered about.

“Nothing physical was taken,” the woman on duty was explaining, while Barbara and Bruce listened intently and Dick lurked around in the backdrop to fool with the lab’s docked computer. “The filing cabinets were ransacked, though. That Miss Quinn did quite a bit of damage to our heavy-duty locks. The plant girl must have taken something from the computer, but we can’t seem to figure out what.”

“They were looking for information,” Bruce said. “Nightwing, access the files that were tampered with.”

“That’s not going to work,” the woman went on, “because our security is very highly—”

“Got it,” Dick said, with all the care of a practiced agent—that is to say, none at all. “Harley and Ivy downloaded files from this dossier.” Presently, he pulled up the tab and stepped away to gesture. “Apparently whatever it was they were doing, it involved this guy.”

“Alec Holland... Why does that name sound so familiar?” Barbara wondered aloud as she approached the computer to inspect.

Bruce swept her aside to fetch accompanying information. “Swamp Thing,” he said. “He can’t be the only thing they’re after. It must have something to do with his research, but since all of it was destroyed with his cabin…”

A daunting silence swept across the room while the gears turned in Bruce’s head. He eventually settled on an idea, brandished his communicator, and buzzed in with a gravelly, “Robin, meet me at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters in ten minutes.”

Barbara lifted a brow at his back, then aimed it at Dick instead, who only shrugged.

With a crackle of life, Tim’s voice answered the call. “Sure thing. What did I miss?”

“A robbery,” Bruce told him, narrowing his eyes in thought. “Ivy and Quinn. They’ve also kidnapped an executive scientist that has something we’re looking for.”

“Got it, chief,” Tim responded. “Be there soon.”

The communicator lowered just in time for the Bat’s eyes to rise. “Nightwing, Batgirl, you two need to get help.”

“Am I going crazy, or did the Batman just ask us for help?” Barbara joked.

Dutifully, Bruce ignored her. “It’s time we started looking for someone who might know Harley Quinn’s whereabouts. Any known associate,” he said meaningfully, and the words wiped Barbara’s smile right off her face.

“Oh, no,” Dick said in a withering voice.

“ _Hell_ no,” Barbara asserted, drawing her brows abruptly downward. “If you’re suggesting who I think you are…”

“I am,” Bruce admitted. “I’m saying we need to find The Joker.”

//

Their search for anyone who might know Joker’s whereabouts ended up being less than fruitful. Getting turned away by one passerby after another wasn’t boosting morale any more than it was getting the job done, and after an hour’s worth of stalking through crowds and accosting innocents, Dick finally threw in the towel. “Bat,” he said, “I’m starving.”

“Me, too,” she relented, however unwillingly, by way of a nod. “I guess the plan now is…eat and dash?”

“Eat and dash,” Dick agreed. “Just like high school.”

“Don’t remind me.” Barbara swatted him playfully on the shoulder. “You were kind of dweeby back then,” she commented as they continued down the street, now on high alert in search of a reputable restaurant.

The comment apparently astounded Dick, because he asked, with some level of incredulity, “ _Me?_ ”

“Ha, ha. Don’t be cute.” Barbara smiled when Dick snorted.

“Well,” he started, voice loaded, “I can’t help it that I’m adorable.”

The fond exchange came to a halt at the face of Superbabes, an irritating display of an eating establishment that Barbara hated more than strip clubs. At least those were honest in their presentation, whereas places like these, she argued, were just poorly disguised pits of sexism.

Dick didn’t quite see where she was coming from. “There are men who work here, too,” he replied, goofy grin alight as he peeked through the glass, past the promotional posters.

Unamused, Barbara followed suit. “I don’t suppose the men are the ones you’re looking at.”

“Actually,” Dick countered with a suddenly serious shift in tone, “I am.”

“Oh,” she offered, lifting a brow. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Not like that,” he said, paused, and then added, “well not right _now_.” He jabbed a finger at the glass and regarded her with his mouth pressed into a tight line.

Barbara followed the gesture, past the gaudy hero- and villain-themed corsetry to find a pale and slender man in an appallingly sexual bastardization of a purple suit, jotting a table’s order onto a notepad near the back of the restaurant. He was facing away, and neither of them could really discern whether the fluff of green atop his head was a wig.

“Oh my god,” she all but whispered, catching the corner of Dick’s gloating stare.

“I told ya this was the place to go, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, to see some T ‘n’ A,” she griped. “We can’t even tell if that’s really him or not.”

“Should we go in?”

“Hell no.” She flattened a hand against his chest, at which he smiled.

“No?”

“ _Move_ ,” she insisted, pushing lightly to make her point.

“Oh.” Dick obeyed, and the two of them slinked into the nearby garbage alley and crouched low to the ground. “This is suspicious,” he informed her, only to watch with a mask of pleasantness when she scowled.

“Well, we have to wait until he comes out, or else—”

“What on earth are you two doing?” A woman asked, puffing at a cigarette in her skimpy, knockoff Superman suit some feet away from them. “You’re not tryna rob us, are you?”

Barbara smiled in what she hoped was a convincing manner. “Ha, um, no ma’am. We were—”

“Making out,” Dick offered, grinning when Barbara white-knuckled his thigh and aimed a tight smile at the woman.

“Yes, that,” she supplied. “Sorry to bother you on your break.”

“Whatever,” the lady offered, “just maybe try and do that shit somewhere else, ‘kay? We get enough weird gropers _inside_.”

“Right,” Barbara said, then shot to her feet with Dick in tow by the wrist. “We were just leaving.”

“We were?”

“Yes, _sweetheart_ ,” she hissed through her teeth, yanking him away. “We were.” Dick let her manhandle him to the opposite side of the building, where they parked themselves on a nearby bench, underneath a tiny fruit tree.

“Superman’s looking different these days,” Dick said distractedly as he stared somewhere out in the distance. Barbara had her gaze fixed on the brick corner, lying in wait like a snake on the hunt. The joke didn’t seem to faze her, so he tried a different approach. “Do you think Joker takes smoke breaks?”

“Doubt it. We’re going to have to wait until the end of his shift.”

“It’s late,” he observed, “so this is the last round of customers, I take it.”

She surveyed something on her phone, then said, “Yeah. The place closes in half an hour.”

“And then we get him?” Dick asked.

“And then we get him,” Barbara agreed.

//

It was eleven p.m. when the man finally left the building, wrapped securely in a tan trench coat. He looked unrecognizable from behind, with gentle blond waves framing a gaunt face—pale but not _white_ , not like it had been painted on.

From the front, though, it was obviously him, something Dick discovered first when the man was just about to put a key into the door of a beat-up flat on the bad side of town. Dick hopped down from the rafters and intersected the path his hand was making, aiming a nonchalant smile at him as if the extra padding would earn him brownie points. “Long time no see, Joker.”

Joker scowled, bearing his teeth. “Ah, Batsy Junior,” he said after he’d reassembled his face into a cavalier grin. It still inspired fear, but not quite as much with the lack of paint, the lack of lipstick, the lack of…real malice, in fact. “Last I checked you had a mullet, so, yeah, a long time!”

That wasn’t exactly true. They’d seen each other since then, but Joker liked to throw a jab in whenever he could, and Dick knew it. Calculatedly, he replied, “And last I remember, you had a crazy girlfriend who kicked your ass. Right?”

Barbara grabbed his shoulder tightly from behind, and before he could comment on it, she had swung him out of range of Joker’s left hook. “Now, see,” the man began, straightening himself out again and throwing his arms out to the sides, “you’ve gone and made me mad. You really don’t want to do that, do you, Nightwank?”

Barbara caught him by the arm and flipped him. Before she could help it, she smirked at Dick’s cawing laugh when Joker hit the ground. He wasn’t laughing by the time Joker swept a spindly leg out underneath Barbara’s ankles, sending her crashing to the ground alongside him.

That’s how the brawl really began. Dick got a hard knock at Joker’s jaw and earned a kick to the ribs in response, prompting him to launch himself at the man and tackle him to the ground. The thing was, he was much stronger than Joker; the _other_ thing was, though, that Joker wasn’t afraid of hitting where it hurts. One knee to the crotch, as expected, which did nothing since Dick wasn’t stupid and wore protection, followed by something far more sinister. Joker got bony fingers into the divots of his ribcage and actually _tickled_ him, until Dick shrank back as part of his automatic reaction, just enough for Joker to slip out from underneath him, right into Barbara’s heel, held aloft with grace and strength rolled into a precise angle.

This, unfortunately, did not stop him for long. He got a talon-like grip around her ankle and yanked, throwing her off balance and making her sink into a one-legged squat. “Nice try,” she said sweetly, reaching into her utility belt for a batarang.

She held it aloft, looked at him with icy eyes, and laughed. And _laughed_. Just laughed until she was tearing up, Dick going right on after her, even as he dragged himself to her aid.

Joker hummed, took a step back, and examined the carefully-hidden needle protruding from his ring. “Now, now, don’t worry…” He grinned something wicked with eyes aglow. “It’s low-dose. Won’t kill you, as much as I’d love it if it did.” Carefully, he got down on one knee and waved at them with his fingers. “Nighty night, little bats.”

And the last thing Dick knew was that there was a hard weight on the back of his skull, turning everything from dim night into complete pitch blackness.

//

For once in his life, his senses were slow on the draw. He opened his eyes to find that he was in a bedroom—dimly-lit, sparsely furnished—lying on his side in the center of a queen-sized mattress. He faced a white wall that had certainly seen better days, and at his back there was the warm press of another body, which he guessed was Barbara. It took him longer than it should have to realize they’d been tied together, and even longer to remember he ought to be struggling out of the bonds.

He mumbled something incoherent, earning a laugh from the far side of the room that instantly made his brow crease.

The voice that questioned wasn’t his own. “What’s going on?” Barbara slurred, going rigid against him within seconds.

Joker faced her with a dramatic grin. “Oh, goodie! You’re both awake!”

“Where the hell are we?” Dick struggled against the restraints, which earned hardly a millimeter of slack and an irritated Barbara, to boot.

“Nunyah,” Joker replied with an obnoxious smack of his lips. “And the building’s empty besides us, so good luck calling for help.” This was punctuated with a cackle, fading off into nothing more than pleasant, humming remnants of laughter. And then Joker started stripping off his uniform, which was about when Barbara began to envy Dick’s position facing the wall.

The thought must have translated onto her face, because Joker flashed her a curly grin. “Yeesh, a guy can’t take a shower in his own condemned apartment?” he asked, dropping his shirt to the ground. “I’ll tell you what, darling…” He sighed somewhat wistfully, untwisted his tie, and let it hit the ever-growing pile of clothes at his feet, followed by candy-colored shorts that weren’t an inch longer than the underwear beneath. “Not a lot of likely prospects in a place like Superbabes, you know?”

Barbara wrinkled her nose. “I don’t suppose so.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Dick offered in a droll monotone.

Joker kicked the pile of clothes aside and toed off his shoes before approaching the bed, palms flat on the mattress in front of Barbara. “What, you don’t think I’m cute?” His disappointment was false and his teasing was laughably obvious.

Barbara smiled snidely. “Sure thing, gorgeous.” She watched with a hard stare as Joker considered her with a sideways frown.

“Um, hello?” Dick said, sounding so offended that Joker had to bark a laugh.

“Relax and wait your turn, Sugar,” he said, trailing a finger along Barbara’s jaw.

She’d seen it before: The careless flirtations, the playful gimmick. She knew how to play along with every one of Joker’s outlandish tendencies, and she let her words be poisonous even as her voice remained stony. “Don’t mind him,” she said, “he’s just jealous.”

As anticipated, Joker sneered and recoiled as if he’d been burnt. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m saving myself for Batman.” She earnestly couldn’t tell if that was a joke or not, but before she could decide, he added, “But if you don’t watch your words, I may bite.”

Those words triggered something in Dick that made him spasm against her back, but Barbara was determined not to break her chain of wry comments; something was getting to the clown, somehow, even if she wasn’t sure what that something was. “Maybe I like that,” she dared.

He slashed a knife at the ropes binding them together, and watched with muted interest as Dick squirmed with such ferocity that he rolled clear off the bed and hit the floor with a grunt. Then, he rolled his eyes and cut the ropes around Barbara’s hands and feet. “I’m not here to hurt you, idiots. I’m _trying_ to keep a low profile, if you know what I mean.”

“Please. You?” Barbara shot back.

“Bingo! I’ve turned over a new leaf, as they say.”

“Interesting that you would put it like that.” Amid her blank staring, Joker stepped into her line of sight and forced her gaze to meet his.

“Is it?” he asked, reaching a hand toward her with volatile softness.

She caught his wrist, refusing to shrink back from his wild grin and manic eyes. Before she could even think of an insult, his other hand landed somewhere just beneath her ribs and—and _tickled_ her. Whatever it was she’d been expecting him to do, this was not it. Reflexively, she cawed out an embarrassing laugh, which followed her all the way back onto the mattress while Joker’s wire-thin frame came down after her.

From the floor, Dick saw a flash of red hair flip over the edge of the bed, and then Joker’s face, winking suggestively down at him while Barbara just laughed and laughed, her hands steeled against Joker’s shoulders.

“What’s going on?” he asked, with an edge to his voice that made Joker smile all the wider. “Batgirl, _report_.”

“I’m—I’m right here,” she grated out through giggles and snorts. “You don’t have to talk to me like—like I’m—”

“Someone’s a little touchy when he can’t get what he wants,” Joker observed with a rather undignified snort of his own.

“Joker,” Dick said, the fire in his voice tantamount to the matching heat of his gaze, “you’d better keep your mouth shut.”

“Or what?” Joker taunted, lifting one hand in the shape of a predatory claw while the other held Barbara down against the bed. “You’ll send the big, bad Bat after me? I’m quivering in my briefs!”

“You’d better hope so,” Dick said through gritted teeth, “because if he doesn’t show, I might just have to take matters into my own hands.”

//

Bruce had followed the tracker on Dick’s communicator into a profoundly derelict apartment complex. He was sure it used to be quite lovely, but the whole place now reeked of asbestos, and the purple paint on the walls peeled with such intensity in places that he could see holes in the original paint layer beneath.

When the tracker brought him to the correct door, he held an arm out to signal Tim, who stood a foot down from him with his eyes focused squarely on his phone. The tech-blue shining across his face was the most light the place had probably seen in years.

His hand was mere inches from the doorknob when he heard it—the sound of Barbara crying out in alarm, following by a deviously familiar cackle. Tim’s head whipped up the moment Bruce lifted his leg to kick down the door, but before anything could come crashing down, he heard something that made him go still. Barbara’s voice again, only she was…laughing.

“Fuck _you_ ,” she spat, malice overridden by high, rising guffaws. “I’m gonna kick your ass!”

Cautiously, he tried the knob. Unlocked. When the door opened fully, he saw Joker atop Barbara, his bony fingertips poised above her ribcage while she wheezed, pink-faced and grinning, beneath him. On the floor, Dick was bound and scowling in a deathly simmer of silence.

“All right… What the godforsaken shit is going on here?” Tim commented without poise. Bruce might have been thinking something along the same lines, not that he’d admit it.

Barbara’s flush went from dainty pink to aggressive red when Joker hopped up, hands clasped. “Batsy, baby,” he crooned, baring his teeth in a sharp grin. “I knew you’d come rescue me eventually…” He crept conspicuously toward the closet and pulled on some pants and a jacket.

Tim and Bruce exchanged a look before the former sighed and set to work freeing Dick of his restraints. Bruce took a step away from the threshold and watched him skulk out in a complaining slump with Tim at his heels, nagging him for the thanks he felt he deserved.

“Don’t wait around on my account,” Joker told him, patting him almost affectionately on the shoulder before sliding around the bulk of his frame in the doorway. “I’ll go wait in the car.” With that, he slipped away, leaving Bruce to regard an uncomfortable, tight-lipped Barbara.

“Err, I was just about to call you,” she said, uncharacteristically meek. Something about it didn’t sit well with him, and so he said nothing.

When they all regrouped by the Batmobile, the wheels of fate were already regretfully in motion.

“Listen,” Joker said, throwing a too-fond arm around Bruce’s caped shoulders. “I’ll level with you here, Bats. Nightwank and his gal pal told me the whole story. So, you need my help, and I need a fast pass out of this dump. Here’s the deal: I help you find my dear, sweet Harley, and you put in a good word to my parole board so they’ll lay off, all right?”

Bruce plucked Joker’s hand off with thumb and forefinger. With a decided kind of grace, he answered, “No.”

Joker wilted instantly. “What? But you need my _help!_ ”

“I don’t make deals with psychopaths,” he clarified. “What Harley and Ivy are planning could spell trouble for earth as we know it, and as crazy as you are, I’m sure you’re not keen on dying.”

“Not without you,” Joker replied. Tim looked at Dick, who looked at Barbara, who looked at Joker. The pause was heavy, but eventually the clown caved. “Fine,” he said with practiced nonchalance, crossing his arms and bumping Bruce’s hip with dramatic flair. “You’re the boss, big guy. Where do I sign?”

“Whoa, wait,” Barbara said, reaching a hand out as if to stop Bruce, who hadn’t yet moved. “He’s coming _with_ us?”

“It wasn’t my first choice,” he admitted, casting a glance back as Joker pulled off stunt-level acrobatics to worm his way into the Batmobile’s back seat. “But we can’t risk letting him go now that we’ve finally got him in our sights again.”

“Right,” Tim said flatly, still staring at his phone. He didn’t look up, even when Dick cleared his throat meaningfully and Barbara exhaled in a soft _whoosh_.

“Get in the car,” Bruce said sternly. That was the end of that.

Barbara slid into the passenger seat and Dick grudgingly took the middle seat next to Joker, followed closely by Tim, who’d unglued his eyes from his screen long enough to level a calculating stare at them both. Dick couldn’t be bothered to humor it this time, especially not since Joker appreciated the attention enough for both of them and pretended to preen under the Red Robin’s scrutinizing gaze.

“All we need from you, Joker,” Bruce was saying throughout this whole ordeal, “is help finding Harley. That’s it. My team can handle the rest, and you’ll be free to go so long as you cooperate.”

“How can we be sure that’s a good idea?” Dick asked with a worried crease in his brow. “I mean, ‘going straight’ is one thing, but the fact that he’s—”

“Stop the car,” Joker said, voice tight.

Barbara aimed an open-mouthed glare at him the same instant Tim said, “Humor me here: Why should we?”

“I said _stop_ the car!” he exploded, launching out of his seat with a finger crooked at something or someone just out of view. “It’s him! That’s the _guy_!”

On impetus, Bruce’s foot slammed on the brake. The car had barely screeched to a halt, the roof barely lowered before Joker leapt from it, lithe and quick on his feet. “Bobby Liebowitz!” he crowed, a damning statement that made the man’s eyes go wide, unmistakable with fear, even from where they were. Before they could even take a breath, Joker was gone, all long limbs and fast steps.

“Shit,” Barbara cursed, pulling herself up onto the hood and raking her gaze over the gray crowd of people in the streets. Somewhere out of the way she spotted them, a feat owed greatly to Joker’s appalling color scheme. “There he is,” she said, fishing for her grapple gun on her toolbelt and taking flight. Bruce and the boys exchanged glances and followed suit, leaving the car behind on the curb in all its shining, armored glory to roost.

It was a feat to see the Joker run like this. Bruce had marveled at it before, but Barbara and the others hadn’t seen it up close quite like this. What Joker lacked in strength he obviously made up for in speed, as he was beating even Bruce by precious seconds, dodging through people like they were meaningless obstacles and hopping minor barriers with poise and grace.

They managed to catch him in an alley, where he had the unassuming Bobby cornered with his fingers wrapped around the man’s neck, scowling with fervency at him. “Remember me, buster?” he asked, smiling wide. “I loaned that money to you in _confidence_ , and I do remember you promising you’d pay it back.”

Bruce got a hand on his shoulder, from which Joker jerked away to land a hard punch to Bobby’s face. It was enough to knock him to the ground, where he continued wailing on him until Bruce had to physically lift him by the midsection to hold him back, still scraping his nails through the air with ill intent and stubborn resolve alike. “I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense,” Bruce growled, manhandling The Joker away from Bobby, who was curled pathetically against the dumpster, watching with wide eyes.

“I.O.U.s don’t work in the real world, jerk!” Joker cried as a finality, flailing his fists dangerously close to Bruce’s face. Whether he dodged by skill or pure luck was up for debate, but he eventually wrestled him back into the Batmobile while Barbara, Tim, and Dick looked on with tired expressions.

“Listen, Joker,” Bruce started gruffly as he slid back into the driver’s seat, “we don’t have time for your games. People’s _lives_ are at stake.”

Joker crossed his arms first, then his legs, turning his nose up for the fullest effect. “It wasn’t a game, darling. Don’t you know the value of a dollar?” When he was ignored, he peered through his lashes at Dick, who sat, stiff and straight, next to him. “Does Daddy Bats give you an allowance for being his sidekick, or what?”

Dick frowned. “I’m not the sidekick, _he_ is,” he defended, gesturing at Tim.

“I prefer the term protégé,” Tim rebuked tonelessly. “And no, he doesn’t pay me.”

“How crude,” Joker offered with a sly smile. “You know, if you worked with _me_ , I would—”

“Did it ever occur to you that you might try and care about our situation?” Barbara exploded from the passenger seat, twisting around to glare. “Harley and Ivy are going to end the whole damn world and you just wanna fuck around and—and chase down losers for a few bucks!”

A _few?_ ” He scoffed. “Try a few hundred.”

“Still not important,” Bruce put in, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “Batgirl is right. If you don’t want to take this seriously, we run the very real risk of letting the entire planet die. That includes Harley.”

“So?” Joker sniffed, making an expression bordering on a pout for just a hint of a moment.

“That includes _you_ ,” Bruce continued.

Joker set his jaw to the side and looked at him. “Well, I wouldn’t want that pretty face of yours turning green, so…maybe you’ve got a point.”

Bruce heaved a sigh and cast his eyes back on the road. “Worse than that, Joker. If this plan fails, if even _one_ thing is wrong with their equation, that could spell disaster. Worse than plant people.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Joker said, leaning back with a grunt. “Here, you really want my help? Take the next exit to Blüdhaven.”

Barbara and Bruce exchanged curious looks.

“Trust me,” Joker supplied unhelpfully. His smile was with a sharp, cruel, self-satisfied thing. “I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

Grudging was almost too light a word to use, but Bruce humored the man and did as he was told. He let the highway whisk them away to the dim, gray streets of Gotham’s sister city and mentally crossed his fingers that somehow, this was a choice well-made.


	2. Chapter 2

They pulled up to the dinkiest nightclub that side of the tracks, much to Joker’s amusement. He visibly reveled in the disappointment written across the others’ faces for a moment before holding up a finger to make his point. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but this is definitely _the_ place to go.”

“To find Harley and Ivy?” Bruce chanced, tiredly, as he rubbed his temple with one hand to soothe the oncoming headache.

“Yes, that.” Joker clambered gracelessly over Dick’s lap, sending his hands flying up toward the roof of the car to avoid inviting more bodily contact. Once he was gone, Dick followed, with Tim on his tail and Barbara joining them.

Bruce was the last to leave the car, but the first to take the necessary steps toward the club. Even from the outside of the worn-down little shack, pulsing music could be heard bleeding through the wooden walls. Animatedly, Joker shimmed up beside him and elbowed him playfully in the ribs. “Not _only_ that, though, if you catch my drift, Batboy.” This went ignored, as expected.

The group huddled inside and cast eyes on the surprisingly spacious interior of the shack. Though perhaps it might have looked smaller from the outside, Bruce hazarded a guess that it was the sparse crowd that made it look so large.

Still, the people that were there were willfully enjoying their time. Half of them were obviously drunk, and all but a handful were dancing to the obnoxiously poppy beat airing from some overhead speakers. On the wooden platform at the front, which served as a stage, there were two burly redheaded men belting out a duet, and if Bruce were to be completely honest, the song registered as familiar before the snub-nosed faces of Min and Max ever did.

“Don’t pull your love out on me, honey—”

The chords dulled to the backdrop when Joker pointed a bony finger at someone standing closer to the back of the room and said, “See? Shrubby’s your man for finding lost pets… And he just loves to dance, you know.” He aimed a falsely saccharine smile at Bruce, then at Barbara. “It gets him nice and…loose.”

Tim privately made a face, which Dick unwittingly mirrored from where he stood a few steps ahead of him, at Bruce’s left flank. Barbara was the one to speak, though, drily and with a tight-lipped smile. “Go loosen him up then, huh?”

“You seem to be pretty good at that,” Tim chimed in, with a pleasant grin and shrug combo when Dick and Barbara glared at him.

Joker smirked. “It works on some better than others.” There was a brief pause, during which Joker snapped his fingers and then gestured over his shoulder. “I’ll go warm the big guy up. I’ll bet he’s just _dying_ to see me.”

The remainder of the group watched curiously as Joker bumped Shrubby’s current dance partner aside with his hip and got comfortable in the man’s personal space. Despite his jest, Shrubby did not look thrilled to see him in any manner. There still seemed to be some civility to their conversation, though, as it carried on longer than ten seconds and ended with Joker scowling, rather than Shrubby, who winked after the clown’s retreating form as if he’d won a particularly brutal argument.

“I don’t believe that bastard,” Joker said, crossing his arms and regarding each of them in turn, clearly waiting for someone to step up to bat and ask what had transpired. When no one took the bait, he rolled his eyes and said, with conviction, “I threatened him and everything, but since I’m trying to fit in all pretty with you straight-edge psychos, I went ahead and accepted his oh-so-gracious offer.”

Presently, he stomped off, leaving the group to glance around among themselves with imploring expressions and no answers among them.


End file.
